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[ox-en] Re: Value of software

Hi Graham and list!

3 weeks (26 days) ago Graham Seaman wrote:

I've cut a lot and just left what I hope are the essential parts of
your argument. If I'm wrong, and I cut out something important, please
put it back next time (if there is a next time..)

Summary:
You seem to be saying that software has a special, immaterial form,
which distinguishes it from other goods. I am saying that there is
nothing special about it in this way: all goods have a design (the
'immaterial' part), and a physical realization. The physical realization
of some goods takes less labour than it does for other goods; the tendency
for most goods is for that labour to decrease, and so for their value to
fall. Software is the most extreme case of this, but it is not
qualitatively different from many other goods.


I think you have a point here. Indeed there is a fundamental shift
throughout the developlment of capitalism here.

Of course every commodity has some development costs, i.e. the
immaterial labor needed to develop it. The labor needed for that is
fixed / constant for a given product because it is all done when the
development process has come to an end. (Is this similar to the fixed
capital of Marx? I don't know.)

And in addition every commodity has a production cost being the labor
needed to actually produce it. If you're looking from the information
side of the product it would be the reproduction cost BTW.

The fundamental - not to say: historical - shift here is that the
reproduction cost drops relative to the development cost. And software
is the most exteme example.

Is this what you're saying, basically?


						Mit Freien Grüßen

						Stefan


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Thread: oxenT00475 Message: 17/30 L6 [In index]
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